Happy 31st, Harry
by How Doth the Little Crocodile
Summary: Harry, celebrating his 31st birthday on July 31st, 2011, dwells on his family, both the children he is raising and the parents whom he has outlived by nearly ten years. Harry/Ginny, family centric.


"Happy birthday, Dada!" Lily screeched as she launched herself into her parents' bed. It was currently 6 a.m. and little Lily's parents were not yet awake. They should have been, she told herself, seeing as today was a special day.

"Wake up, wake up, Dada!" she cried as she pushed on her father's chest as if she was trying to give him CPR. "You gotta get up, it's your birthday!"

"Lily! Let him sleep! It is his birthday, after all! He's allowed to sleep in!" James scolded from his parents' open doorway, his younger brother hovering behind him. Ginny sighed and pulled the covers over her head as her husband laughed at their children.

"All right, all right, you win, Princess. I'm getting up." He grabbed her around the waist with one arm and got to his feet, his daughter horizontal in the air, wedged between his arm and his torso. His boys got out of the way as he left his room, still holding his youngest. She began to squirm, knowing that her Daddy would never drop her. James and Al followed them down the stairs and into the kitchen. Sitting on the kitchen table was the day's Daily Prophet and a cup of coffee, which had a spiral of steam coming up from the ceramic cup. Two pieces of toast sat on a plate on top of the Prophet.

"Did you guys do this?" he asked his sons as he put his three-year-old upright on her feet once more. James nodded emphatically while Al shook his head no. The older elbowed the younger in the side and Al began to nod. Harry gave his boys a look, smile destroying the scolding expression he was going for.

"Eri made it!" Lily cried, naming their house elf as the culprit. Harry sighed. Of course she did. And she was also kind enough to disappear and let the boys take the credit.

"She wanted to make more," Al fessed up, "but we wanted it to seem like we had done it. Anything more and it would have been obvious it was her." Harry had to smile at the boy's crafty thinking. Maybe he will be a Slytherin, he mused, not for the first time when it came to his middle child.

Hours later at the Burrow, his entire family had gathered. It was strange to know that, after marrying Ginny almost 12 years ago now, he had a family. He had grown up without one then married into one, huge and ready-made.

"Happy birthday, dear," Mrs. Weasley said, beaming as she pulled him into her arms.

"Thanks," he responded, beaming back. After she released him and walked away, he sat back down on the couch. 'Thank you' had been his default response as everyone in the room had said it at least once. His thoughts were far from his party as he watched his daughter and nephew play together on the rug while his boys and a few of his other nephews (so many children!) trailed after his godson, there with his grandmother. Teddy was entertaining the boys with his morphing abilities as well as tales of Hogwarts. He was just about to enter his third year and he was thrilled to be headed back to the castle.

"Sweetheart?" Harry turned to find Ginny standing behind him. "What's wrong?"

"Just thinking," he replied.

"About what?"

"I've outlived them by almost ten years," he said quietly. "This Halloween, it will have been thirty years since they died. And I'll have outlived them by ten years. They were 21 when they died for me."

"Much too young," was Ginny's murmured response.

"Yes. And they almost never were, you know? If Snape hadn't messed up with my mum when he was 15, it easily could have been him who married her. I could have never been born."

"But you were," Ginny reminded him, pulling him back to reality. "You're here. With us. With me and our sons and our daughter."

"I was luckier than they were," he said, looking his wife dead in the eye. "I will never, ever leave you or the kids if I have any say in the matter."

"I know," she told him. "I love you."

"I love you, too. And I always will." Ginny smiled brightly then yanked him out of his chair.

"No more depressing thoughts," she ordered and pulled him into the fray of redheads. "Today is a happy day and I demand that you celebrate it!"

Never had Harry more appreciated what he had. He would never take it for granted, he promised himself as he wrapped his arms around his wife. Never.

**End A/N: This is very late. Obviously written in July but I decided to save it for Halloween. Then Halloween, my grandmother died so obviously this wasn't even on the radar.**

**I hope you enjoyed it regardless of the inappropriate timing.**


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